On the asymptotic behavior of some population models (Q1197416)

The author treats the nonautonomous Kolmogorov system \[ u_ i'=u_ iF_ i(t,u),\;t\geq 0,\;u=(u_ 1,\ldots,u_ n),\;1\leq i\leq n, \] where \(F:\mathbb{R}\times\mathbb{R}^ n_ +\to\mathbb{R}^ n\). It is assumed that \(F\) is locally Lipschitz continuous, bounded in \(\mathbb{R}\times K\) for each compact subset \(K\) of \(\mathbb{R}^ n_ +\), and there exist positive constants \(m,c_ 1,\ldots,c_ n\) such that \[ -c_ i\partial F_ i/\partial x_ i(t,x)\geq m+\sum_{j\in J_ i}c_ j|\partial F_ j/\partial x_ i(t,x)|,\;1\leq i\leq n, \] where \(J_ i=\{1,\ldots,i- 1,i+1,\ldots,n\}\). Suppose the system has a positive solution \(v=(v_ 1,\ldots,v_ n)\) defined and bounded on \([0,\infty)\). The author proves that: (a) all solutions \(u\) with \(u(0)>0\) are defined on \([0,\infty)\) and \(u(t)-v(t)\to 0\) as \(t\to\infty\); (b) the system has at most one solution whose components are bounded above and below by positive constants; (c) if \(F\) is \(T\)-periodic, then the system has a nonnegative \(T\)-periodic solution \(u^ 0\) such that \(u(t)-u^ 0(t)\to 0\) as \(t\to\infty\) for any positive solution \(u\). These results have the advantage that no sign condition on \(\partial F_ i/\partial x_ j\), \(i\neq j\), is assumed. Thus, they can be applied to various population models such as competing species, predator-prey, or mutualism. An application is given to prove a stable coexistence theorem for a periodic predator-prey model.